What is attested
The Guttas ruled a district around Guttavolal, modern Guttal in Haveri, under the Western Chalukyas and later the Seunas. A group of Kannada inscriptions gives their succession and records temple endowments and land grants.
Their charters claim descent from the Guptas of the north — a claim made some six centuries after that dynasty ended, in a region it never ruled. Such assertions were a normal instrument of legitimacy and are useful evidence of which past dynasties still carried prestige in the Deccan around 1100, rather than of anybody's actual ancestry.
They disappear in the thirteenth century with the general reordering of the Deccan that followed the Sultanate's arrival.
Further reading
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
- Fritz, John M. Hampi Vijayanagara. Jaico, 2003
- Hawley, John Stratton. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Harvard University Press, 2015
- Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. The Colas. University of Madras, 1955
- Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta. A History of South India. Oxford University Press, 1955
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.